"Back in 1999, she defied an order to stop ministering to gay Catholics from the Vatican’s chief liturgical watchdog, who concluded that she didn’t sufficiently adhere to church teaching on the “intrinsic evil” of homosexual acts.

That watchdog was the future Pope Benedict.

DeBernardo told the AP he had tried twice before to get his group VIP seats to a papal audience — and each time he was turned down.

This time, both the Vatican ambassador in Washington and the archbishop of San Francisco forwarded the group’s request to Rome.

And in another sign that the Vatican might be shifting course, the bigwig who invited New Ways to sit up front was none other than Benedict’s right-hand man, Msgr. Georg Gaenswein."